The Seventh Age
by Peladon
Summary: A new creation myth begins in Middle Earth Long after the fellowship the age of man ends and very few are left to see it Something thats been rattling around in my head for a while and seemed appropriate for Christmas
1. Chapter 1

**The seventh age**

 _Universe and characters belong to who the law says they do, where that is not me I am content. For fun not profilt.  
_

 _I have been meaning to rework this for a while but life got innthe way, hoever it decided it was not finished and wouldnt let me progress other things until it was._

 _I hope JRRT would have approved this continuing of the creation legend._

 _Chapter 1 Awakening_

Gallica awoke as the sixth age was approaching its end.

At first she remained where she had woken, still and quiet, reflecting on the things she knew and wanted to know, feeling her way into full wakefulness. Alone but not concerned by it, exploring the place of her beginning without thought for what might follow. For a while she was content needing nothing more than her wakefulness, seeking nothing more than what she had. There was light but she did not wonder at it, nor did she seek to move to find the source. She was not aware of time, nor of place, only of being and of a sense of wonder and surprise at it.

How long that continued she would never know but there came a point when contentment ave way to a sense that something was to be done, for as that unnoticed time passed her awareness of herself grew and as it did her mind stretched and curiosity was born in her. Contentment left her and a longing to venture from her place of waking replaced it. Suddenly aware that she was alone she wandered out into the world beyond her dwelling in search of understanding and of companionship.

She had known what she would find beyond the walls, though she did not know how she knew, but the reality of it was still shocking. Disaster had rolled across Middle earth like a furious storm and everywhere desolation bore bleak testament to its passing. The children of men, once as populous as the fireflies above the water, before they destroyed both the fire flies and the water, were dwindling in numbers, just as once every other living things had dwindled before their power. Gallica knew there would be no recovery for them for the lines of the greatest in them were burned out and the ones that remained no longer had the strengths recovery would require.

As the last of their time seeped away they scratched an existence as best they could from the world that had offered them so much. A world whose gifts they had consumed without thought until it had nothing more to give them that they valued. Each turn of the seasons saw their numbers decline, the sounds of mourning fading with their hope. Those who remained huddled in small groups wherever shelter was offered, or wandered restlessly across the plains and uplands seeking shelter from the cold and heat as best they could. The mountains and the returning forests they avoided as if afraid of them, though Gallica was not sure why. Their past was fading quickly, the vast and towering cities they had once built now lay ruined, the great glittering mountains levelled to hillocks of fragmenting shards, the metals crumbling into brittle slivers that became lost amongst the tumbled rocks. The days of glory, of plenty, were now as much legend as the dragons of a past they had long ago ceased to believe in.

For the children of men the sun was sinking and their day was dying, there was no way now for them to regain what they once had been for their seed was poisoned beyond recovery. The ones who might have taught them to begin again were long since dead; they had been amongst the first to be destroyed. For those that remained all memory of another way was fast passing into shadow, for their collected knowledge they had trusted to Gallica's forbears long ago and those ancestors were now as much part of the dust as the fine cities. No other repositories remained, and even if they had there were few now left who could have read them.

Gallica wandered amongst their huddled communities and knew that she could not change their fate even if could they see or hear her.

As the years passed she rambled alone across the lands closest to her home unsure of what she should do, for her loneliness was becoming an ever harder burden to bear. The day she found another of her kind was the happiest since her waking, but that one too felt lost and unsure and sought answers rather than offered them. This second one had not yet learned to the leave the place of waking and so Gallica wandered as far as she dared and told the second one all that she found, yet even so they were as puzzled as they had been when they first awoke. Then the second one discovered the way into the wider world and began to wander other lands, finding only the same as Gallica had found, knowledge rendered impotent and the power of the children of men broken as shards of glass upon the rocks.

The seasons wheeled and the worlds wounds began to heal and the trees near her place of waking were growing tall again and the rivers were once more bright and clear when Gallica first found the place she could not go.


	2. Chapter 2

_Chapter 2 The hidden forest_

They travelled further now, sometimes alone and sometimes with the other, seeking more of their kind and watching the continuing decline of the children of men . Then came that day, the day when their future began.

Gallica was alone wandering aimlessly north and east, she had just crossed a broad plain by starlight heading towards the far mountains when she first felt its shadow. Stopping and looking towards the source of the blankness in the world a sudden sense of excitement took hold of her. The trees she could see were young, barely a century or so old, and yet they carried an aura, a memory of something far older and greater. Gallica ventured closer, reaching out to touch an outrider of the gloaming. The tree knew her as she knew it but it could not tell her what the unseen place was or why it was there. Puzzled Gallica returned to her waking place and thought but found nothing in her memory to explain what she had felt.

Many times she wandered back to the young forest after that, but the shadowed place she sensed remained shrouded from her knowing. A decade passed and she found another of her own kind but, as with the first one, it could provide no answer to the riddle of why they had woken, nor to the mystery of the forest.

Then, as she wandered amongst the growing trees on a bright morning in spring, she felt the other for the first time. Something else, not a tree, not a forest creature nor one of her own, but something alive and vital. Whatever it was it knew that she was there and it was watching her. As she reached out for it the blankness intervened, but before all contact was lost she had sense of some thing bright and powerful, of something old and yet younger than the new trees. Something knowing that might provide the answers that she sought. She made one last desperate attempt to speak to it but like mist through a clearing it evaporated before her entreaty.

Back in her place of waking Gallica sought for an explanation of what it was that she had felt, but as before she found no answers, nor did her own kind have any to offer. Two more of them she found in her searching each looking for the same reasons as she, neither able to tell her why.

The seasons turned and she often returned to that forest. She had explored others near and far but found nothing more than burgeoning nature, none had the sense of something hidden that this one did, and nowhere else did she feel the watching presence. Only here, where the trees grew faster than anywhere else and the deer and birds were most numerous was she conscious of this other. Yet still she could not persuade it to answer her pleas for communication.

Then one night as she searched again for an answer a thought came to her. Perhaps it was her form that dissuaded it, though in as much as she could tell its form was the same as her own. But maybe it did not trust her as she was; perhaps it required something older, maybe more familiar….

It took much searching and practice for her to master what she needed, but in the end she accomplished it and early on a bright summer's day, when life was basking in the pleasures of the early sun, she stood beneath the trees of the forest in the body of a young child of men.

Yet is seemed her efforts were to be for nothing, the forest remained unchanged and the secret place still hidden. As the day grew warmer and the hum of bees stronger she sank down beneath one of the larger beech trees, water seeped from her eyes and without knowing it she cried herself to sleep.

The day had moved towards evening and the night creatures were starting to stir before she woke, rubbing her eyes and accepting her failure. Rising she sighed and turned towards the open land again and began her way back through the shadowed trees. She did not think she would return.

Only as she reached the edge of the young forest, a place where she had found some form of long forgotten gate, did she find what she had sought. As she turned to look back one last time into the deepening shadows beneath the trees she felt a change in the forest, a shimmer of something shifting as if a veil had lifted briefly allowing a breeze from another place to pass across the trees. The birds and animals fell still and silent and the trees seemed to bow as if to a passing gale and then the presence was there, closer than ever she had known it before and, or so it suddenly seemed, curious.

"Why do you wear that form?" The voice seemed to come from all around at once as if from the very air itself. "You did not need it before, so why do you take it now?"  
For the first time since her waking Gallica felt emotion, she thought the name of it was hope.  
"I wanted you to speak to me and you would not. I thought that perhaps my form offended you and so I sought out the only other form that I know well enough."  
There was a sense of something coming closer and the voice came again.  
"Why do you wish to speak with me?"  
"I am alone and I have so many questions. There are few of us and none know more than me."  
"How few?" the voice had sharpened slightly and she though she felt a sense of chill around her.  
"No more than four others and it has taken all of the time since I awoke to find them."

Suddenly the presence was all around her, wrapping her in a light brighter than that of the mid day sun. Gallica felt the full power of it for the first time, the age of it and yet the youth of it, the deep well of knowing and a boundless curiosity. She felt also the hint of something she thought was feeling, of joy and sorrows past, of loss and yearning eased by the love of the forest and the creatures that lived within them.

For a moment an image of a great forest and of people living within it in peace and joy stirred in her mind, shifting to allow a glimpse of shadows of other people and other times and other loves. Fear followed hope for she didn't understand what she saw and was bemused by the intensity of it.

The light of the other withdrew slightly leaving behind it warmth that seemed to envelope her.  
"You are newborn!" The presence sounded both shocked and surprised. "What form of being are you? Where did you some from?"  
Tears welled in Gallica's eyes as she considered the question.  
"I do not know. Only that I awoke and was alone." With a shaking hand she wiped way the falling tears. "I have travelled across the lands and though I recognise all I see I find no answers. I do not know why I have wakened or what I am supposed to do now. I have so many questions and no one to answer them."  
"Why did you come here?"  
The voice was now low and kind and the light drew closer again. Gallica shook her head.  
"I don't know. But I felt some sort of barrier in this forest, something that stopped me seeing all that was here, then I felt a presence, you I think and you knew that I was here. I have wandered amongst the remaining sons of men but they did not see me. I hoped that I might find someone here to help me find my way."  
The tears flowed again as a sense of loss and desperation took hold of her.

For a moment there was no reply then she thought she caught the echoes of a thought.  
"It has been a long time but if I try I must be able to find the way. Ah yes, that is how. If I just ask….."

Gallica felt the world shift and suddenly the light was gone. A sense of even greater loss gripped her then suddenly she felt a touch of something against her face, something wiping away the tears. She looked up and met eyes as blue as summer sky and as deep as the sea, and for a moment she was blinded to all else. Then slowly the blue eyes moved away from her as the figure before her straightened and she saw the being that possessed them.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3 The king of the wood

He, for it was clear that the form before her was male, was tall and straight with a pale skin and hair the colour of the spring sun hanging to his waist. In form he looked much like the sons of men, though his beauty was far greater than theirs had ever been even at the height of their power and on closer looking she realised that the blue eyes were of a different shape and tilt, and his ears, just visible through the long locks, ended in graceful points. In terms of his years she could not assess them for though his body spoke only of youth his eyes had the look of one who had seen far more years than any child of man would ever know. He was very graceful and his look was kind but there was an aura of something powerful and slightly dangerous about him. Gallica gazed at him wide eyed as she realised that if he was the source of the barrier then he was very different to the children of men and, by their terms, very powerful indeed.

"The barrier is yours?" The words slid out before she thought to stop them.  
He inclined his head.  
"Yes, I set it here nearly two ages ago and I keep it, even though there is no reason to do so now." He smiled, though a little stiffly as if he had nearly forgotten how. "It has, perhaps, become a matter of habit."  
She looked at him, encouraged by the smile.  
"By what power do you hold it?"  
"My own," he sounded surprised by the question.  
Yes, very powerful indeed.  
"Why did you set it?"  
He moved away from her a pace or two and his expression changed as if he were looking into a time past.  
"The time of my kind was passing and the age of men was begun. Those of my kin were left with a stark choice, to sail west and seek the undying lands or remain in this world and fade." He saw her puzzled look and smiled again, "to surrender our physical form. I could not leave while any of my people remained for I had made vows to them and to the forest and so I too stayed. But despite all the battles we had waged against it I knew that evil had not left the world, and I knew that strength would leave the sons of men and that they would forget those battles and fall prey to the evil again. So I set the barrier within which all of my kin who remained could live in peace undisturbed by the world of men."

Gallica stared at him for there was nothing in her memory of such beings or such happenings.  
"Are you a magician then?"  
"No." He looked down at her with tilted head. "Of course we have not been formally introduced my Lady…?"  
"Gallica, my name is Gallica."  
He bowed his head slightly.  
"Lady Gallica. My name is Thranduil and I am the king of this realm."

King! A king! She knew of them, though they had been gone long before the fall of the children of men. She stared at him openly realising that he was dressed in manner she had never seen since her waking. He wore long boots that reached to his knees, a coat that nearly met their tops and glittered in the light of the moon now rising above them, over that he wore a robe shot through with silver and gold. On his hip he wore a long thin thing she that thought was called a sword. Her impression of his danger might well be justified.  
"I thought kings wore crowns?" The words escaped before she thought them.  
He smiled and inclined his head again and when he raised it he wore a crown of wood decked with summer flowers.  
"I am somewhat out of practice." His smile was echoed in his voice.

Confusion overtook her, until this moment she had never conversed with any other than her own kind and she did not know how to talk to anyone else, much less a king of some personal power and the owner of a sword. But she wanted his approval and his goodwill and so the only choice was confess her ignorance.  
"I know so little of the world. Should I bow to you King Thranduil? Should I call you majesty, or lord, or some other such title?"  
He considered that for a moment before replying..  
"In another age that would have been proper, even required. But this is not then and you are newly born so we will forgo the formalities. Instead tell me more of yourself and your place of awaking."

Gallica hung her head in what she thought might be called sorrow.  
"There isn't much that I can tell you. How I came to wake I do not know; I have the thought that I had existed for some time before I woke but I do not know why I think that to be so. There is much that I could tell you of the past lives of the children of men, their thoughts upon themselves and the world, their songs and stories, their ways and laws, their loves and sadness and hates. But my knowing is of little use, for though I can tell the what of those things I cannot tell you the why. Nor can I understand how those whats came to be. I can describe to you the composition of the stars but I cannot tell you what a star is."  
She looked at him, willing him to understand.  
"I know what this forest is and yet I know nothing of it all. I cannot feel it, or sense it or understand why it is here, why it endures when the children of men perish. Do you understand why that is?"

He remained silent and still and a far away look come into his blue eyes as if he was looking back into some other state of knowing. For a moment it was as if the whole forest held its breath, looking inwards to something she could not see. Finally he looked back towards her.  
"Perhaps. You are linked to the children of men that may be all the explanation that is needed, or maybe it is not. For the moment let us put that aside, tell me more of your place of awaking."

So Gallica told him of the great hall beneath the ground and the mountain that guarded it, of the light that always glowed in the walls and the air that was never still but that she could not breathe in her current body. She described the walls that looked to be of metal but that were not; of the sealed doors that had no keys and of the giant engines that fed on the sun itself. Finally she spoke of the bodies of the dead that littered these halls, many with weapons still clutched in their fingers.

Thranduil listened without comment and when she fell silent he nodded his understanding and sighed.  
"Evil did indeed come forth." said softly, "Sweeping all good before it as it did more than once before. But the bloodlines of the great were ended and there was no one to stand against the shadows this time." He sighed again, suddenly looking desperately sad. "So despite their numbers and all their cunning and seeking the age of men ends. What will follow it I wonder?"  
Gallica watched him in wide eyed silence as he seemed to lose himself in thought, and though this strange king's beautiful face was impassive she could see the drift of memory and feeling through his eyes. 'How,' she found herself wondering, 'could she who understood so little read that in such a strange being? Was it because all around her the forest seemed to echo with his thoughts? What nature of creature was he that the wider world so reflected him?'

Finally his mind was turned back towards the present and herself.  
"What is it that you would have me do Gallica the newborn? I surrendered the world of physical form long ago, nor is that form truly yours. Yet I think that the question you seek to answer may lie within its confines."  
"But you were once as the children of men were you not? Can you not find the answers I need in your memory of that time?"  
"Perhaps, but I was never like the children of men for they are mortal and I and all my kin were not."  
Now was surely the time to ask.  
"What type of being are you then? For there is no life form that I know of that is not mortal."  
He raised his brows and looked at her quizzically.  
"Are you sure of that?"  
"Yes, at least I think so."  
"But you are newborn and so have more questions than answers, is that not why you sought me out?"

She frowned suddenly confused.  
"Yes that is true, so what race was it that was physical but not mortal?"  
"I am of the first born. Does that mean anything to you?"  
Gallica search her memory but found no answer.  
"No, I don't think so."

He looked at her in silence for a long moment then inclined his head in acceptance of her claim.  
"Very well, I will explain. I am the Elvenking, elf kind. We were the first race that awakened in Middle earth and so were called the first born. Though we were once bound to physical form even then we were immortal. Now those of us that remain in the world no longer wear it, such is our fate if we do not follow the call of the sea into the west."  
Gallica reached forward and touched his arm. Beneath the silken mantle the flesh was solid and warm and she thought she could feel the faint beat of a heart.  
"But you have a body now, so you can still wear physical form."  
Thranduil seemed to glow with an inner light similar to the one she had seen before he appeared in this form.  
"So it would seem, though before this day I had not thought ever to do so again. As it is the forest has lent me what I need and memory has patterned it to be as once I was. But I have adopted it only to speak with you and I have no need of it. In truth I am not sure how long I could maintain it."  
"Does it weary you?"  
"No, not as yet, though in time it may. But I must return what I have borrowed if those who have lent it to me are not to suffer for their generosity."  
He leaned towards her again looking down into her face with an expression of curiosity.  
"And what of you new born? From where did you take your cloak of flesh? Must you return it too?"

She shrugged.  
"I took it from the great engines and shaped it to what I wanted. I don't think they need it to be returned. But I will give it back if you think I should, if I can find the way."  
He stared past her as if looking at something deep in the darkened heart of the young forest.  
"It is probably of no matter, though I think you may need to forgo it before you can speak with your own kind again," his voice seemed to echo around them, "and I would have you speak with them."  
She nodded, happy to do what he wanted if it would persuade him to talk to her again.  
"Very well. I will do as you wish, I do not want to lose them and I can always build a new one."  
"As, I think, can I, an interesting thought" he responded slowly.

Gallica moved closer to him, looking up into his face and committing it to memory. For a fleeting moment it occurred to her that memory was smaller in this form but the thought was pushed away by another.  
"Do you have a place to live, a palace I think that they are called?"  
He smiled down at her.  
"Yes I have a palace; it was my fortress in the days when I walked the world in flesh."  
"Why did you need a fortress? Were you attacked, did you have enemies?"  
"In that world all had enemies, for evil itself took on physical form and sought to rule over very living thing."  
"Did you fight the evil? Were you in many battles?"  
She regretted the question immediately for a look passed across his face that seemed to her to be like a cloud passing over the sun. But he answered her easily enough.  
"Yes, I fought in battles against that evil and hoped that it was defeated."  
"Hoped, but not believed?"  
He looked at her in surprise.  
"You see more than I expected from one new born. Yes, that is true I did not believe the evil was defeated and nor was it. It never came in that form again but its presence never left, perhaps it never can if mortal life is to continue. Certainly the sons of men did much to keep it alive, even as their knowledge grew."

She frowned, reviewing her memory; there was no doubt that he was right.  
"Why did they?"  
For a moment she thought he might answer but then he smiled again and shook his head.  
"I think that may be one of the things you have to learn. I cannot teach you the answer to that."  
"Do you know the answer?"  
"Perhaps. I have seen ages come and pass, cities and nations rise and fall, and I have noticed some patterns. But though I could show you those patterns I could not make you understand them nor believe in them if you did not wish to."  
"Oh." She felt a feeling of something she could not name but ignored it. "But perhaps it doesn't matter." She reached forward and caught his hand, "Will you show me your palace please?"  
He looked down at her, at the hand gripping his own, and as he looked he saw a shift in the pattern of her, he nodded.  
"Very well. Come with me."  
"Is it very grand and beautiful?"  
"Grand? I cannot answer for that. Beautiful? I think so but you must see for yourself."  
She chattered happily as he led her through the trees and he wondered again at the nature of her.

The elf lords of the Greenwood heard their Kings call and hurried to the Halls. To their astonishment they found him in the upper gallery looking out over his realm but wearing physical form, and with a glass of good wine in one hand and a platter of strawberries before him. As they watched he consumed some of both with obvious relish.

He felt their astonishment and nodded.  
"Yes, it would seem that physical form is not totally lost to us."  
He bit into a very large strawberry and washed it down with a swallow of wine then picked up another fruit and looked at it.  
"I had forgotten how good such things could be, and, while I would not choose to resume the sorrows and restrictions of this form for ever, revisiting it from time to time is worth consideration."  
He swallowed the fruit with a sigh of pleasure before he turned to them with serious eyes.  
"The age of man is ending and there are newborns abroad in the world, ones who are as we once were, immortal yet children. What their story is I do not know as yet, but their memory is great even as their wisdom is small. What their purpose is seems to be hidden from them and their darkness is such that I cannot read it."  
He scanned the forest around him with physical senses for the first time in millennia.  
"We have wondered why were not called by Mandos when we faded, perhaps these newborns are the answer."  
His expression became tinged with sadness.  
"I would see my kin in the undying lands if I could but if that is not to be our fate then I would wish there to be a reason for it, other than simply being forgotten."  
"What would you have us do my Lord?" an elf lord asked.  
The king turned towards them.  
"Watch over them, but let them know that you are there only when needed." He looked back towards the forest considering the towering trees with thoughtful eyes, "I think that they have much to learn that cannot be taught them; at least not by those who have walked that path so long ago. They must learn for themselves but we may provide some guidance and protection whilst they do so."

"The forest my lord what of that? Are they to be allowed to enter the Greenwood?"  
Thranduil' turned towards the wood again and his blue eyes took on a far away look as his mind ranged across the world beyond his protected lands. For a while he was silent remembering all that had gone before, the faces of those men he had known, long lost to the world, and of those who took the ships countless centuries before. He recalled his family and those he had fought so many battles beside, all departed before the fourth age was barely begun. As he watched the sun turn the leaves to green and shivering slivers of light he tried to see the pattern of what might yet be to come but for the moment saw only fragments. He spoke slowly.  
"For the moment, yes. The time may come when we must forbid them entry again, but not before the new forest has grown and they have learned enough to make their way without us."  
"My Lord what do you think to be the purpose of this?" Another elf lord asked.  
"I do not know." He smiled suddenly, and as brilliantly as the sun itself, "and it is a long time since we have seen such an uncertain thing. Yet I am sure there is a purpose and we can be patient if we need to be, we can wait to see its shape."

He remained staring out at the trees as the sun tracked across the sky and fell into the west. His eyes followed it as dropped below that western horizon and wondered if he would ever see the undying lands and be reunited with those who had gone before. Yet he had spoken no less than the truth when he had said they could be patient, time had little meaning to them, even less now than when they had worn physical form, waiting would be no hardship. The sky shifted towards black as night advanced and stars appeared in tattered swathes across its darkness, their cold brightness calling up memories ancient before the days of men. A full moon hung above the tree tops when Thranduil stepped out to the edge of the parapet and surrendered back the things he had borrowed.

He passed through the barrier between Greenwood and the world and moved out into the plains beyond before turning in the direction from which the Gallica had told him she had come.


	4. Chapter 4

_Chapter 4 Family_

Winter had arrived in the lands beyond the forest when Gallica brought her companions to ask permission to enter the Greenwood. There were seven of them now, though their ability and maturity varied a little each had woken in the same way and each seemed to be searching for answers to the same questions. Each of them had also learned to take physical shape and often chose to do so, though the elf lords had never asked it of them. Thranduil was not alone in noticing that they all chose the same type of shape, nor was he surprised when on this midwinter day Gallica had asked that he assume physical form and allow the snow to fall within the Greenwood. She, they, had wanted to play; there was no other word for it. He had indulged her with a little uncertainty for he could feel the weight of something he could not name bearing down upon him.

For a time he strolled with them through the snow, showing them how to track animals and spy out the birds hiding in the bushes. Then he left them to their games and returned to his Halls knowing that no harm could befall them. For some reason he could not have explained he retained the physical form that she had asked him to adopt and went to sit upon the Woodland throne, something he had not done for an age at least. He did not need the torches to see but he commanded them lit anyway and sat in silence remembering other times and the people he had known, the elves long departed for the west, the men passed beyond the realm of Arda. As for the dwarves, he had never been sure what had happened to them knowing only that their Halls had slowly emptied and yet fewer of them were seen. Maybe they had forgotten their heritage and made their place amongst men.

"Do you have children?"  
Gallica's voice came from beside his knee and he turned his head to look at her, somehow not surprised by her presence.  
"Yes, "he replied softly, "but none here."  
"Where are they then?"  
"Across the sea, they sailed to the west, long ago by the years of men."  
"Why didn't you go with them?"  
"Because my people, and the forest, needed me to remain here. I swore an oath to remain with them for as long as they needed me and such things are not lightly set aside, not by elves."  
"But most of the others have gone too haven't they?  
"Yes, most have now left, but I can no longer take a ship. Nor can any of the other elves you see here."  
"That doesn't seem fair."  
"There is no rule that says life must be fair."  
Will you be able to join them one day?"  
"Perhaps, I no longer know."  
There was silence as she seemed to think about that and Thranduil let his mind drift back to the past again, wondering, not for the first time, why they had not been called home when they faded.

His thoughts were disrupted by the feeling of a weight settling upon his knee and he looked down to see Gallica curling up in his lap. What surprised him most was that it seemed so natural and expected, and as she settled herself more comfortably he had the impression that the world had turned in some way.

She looked up at him with a child's eyes, wide and trusting, and caught at his hand.  
"Your children are far away and we have no parents. Will you have us as your children King Thranduil? Please?"  
He looked down into her face for a moment, uncertain of what to say. Then he felt his hand reach out and touch the soft hair that framed the childish face.  
"Yes," he heard himself say, "I think I will."

xxx

In the far west the mountains moved as the risen seas began to fall back. In the restless dance between land and water the walls of the place of Gallica's awaking were breached, air rushed in and the great engines stalled and failed. The lights that had burned for centuries dimmed and the bodies of the long dead and their guarded treasures resumed their transition into dust. As the walls buckled so the mountain side was rent and through the gap in stone and metals the sun shone in for a time illuminating at its end the last grand gesture, and arrogance, of the children of men. Then, with another great heave, the mountain closed its wound leaving the ruined halls to darkness and silence.

There was no one there to see or regret its ending. Only Gallica might have remembered its power and the meaning of its loss but she was already forgetting.

In a forest far from the mountain of her waking Gallica ran beneath the trees as spring returned, laughing in joy with the others of her kind. The knowledge that had been the gift of her waking was fading, locked away in some deep place within her as she ran and played as a child, eager to learn the answers she had yearned for. Though she no longer remembered the questions.

In the forest behind her unseen guardians watched over them, never interfering in their play but keeping harm at bay.

As the walls of the last great palace of men fell the king of the forest heard the crash and felt the door close upon another age. He moved through the trees, feeling the surge of life renewed, the dawning of another cycle of life. He lingered for a while high in the branches of a great beech looking down to where the children sat beside the forest river. As the echo of the death throes of the last age of men faded he smiled to himself.  
"So dawns the seventh age. So it begins again."


	5. Chapter 5

_Epilog Leavings and Returns_

Seasons turned and years passed umarked while the children grew tall and strong. In Greenwood Thranduil and his lords watched over them with love and care, rarely intervening in their lives except when called for but always there when needed. Gradually the children moved away from the closeness of the early days of their coming and he made no attempt to hold them sensing that their age would be short and that in time they would be gone, though he had no idea why or where to.

He knew that events were moving towards a close the first time he felt one of his lords depart. For all the millenia since the third age they had been together and he had felt their presence as a constant feature of his world, then one bright Autumn day he felt the life of the forest shiver and then one of them was gone. He did not know how nor why but they were gone, they had resigned themselves to being in Greenwood until the world was unmade but now one of them was gone, He felt no fear or sadness before the departure, there was nothing to warn him of the event but suddenly one was gone. He and the those remaining felt the loss but there was nothing to be done only hope the one departed had founf their way somhow to Mandos and so, eventually, home. The following spring another went and two summers after that yet another, then in that autumn another two. The next summer he felt the last of them depart leaving him alone with forest and and the children.

Beyond Greenwood the snow was starting to fly when Gallica and the others came to talk to him of their strange dreams.

As he listened he knew the dreams for what they were, the start of the ending for the children were maturing and with that maturity came memory, their dreams were nothing more than the things they had forgotten. He recalled that Gallica had once told him that she could tell him what made the stars but she did not know what a star was, he and his lords had taught them what a star was and now he was sure that these dreams were the two pieces coming together. The joining carried within it the seed of another beginning for them and another ending for him. Now they would find the answers to the questions the had before they became his children and in doing so they would find more questions to be answered. Questions that he sensed would take them far from Middle earth just as seed on the wind would blow far from the forest before finding the soil in which to take root. Their dreams were the first breeze that heralded that wind.

Another spring followed and another, and they shared their memories with him and he responded to their questions, telling them of the age of elves that came before the age of men and of the children of men that he had known. Now for the first time he told them the stories of the doom of the Noldar, the hubris of Feanor and his sons, and of he great evil of Morgoth and his servant Sauron. He told them of things passed from the world before the age of men, of the great battles and the grief and disappointments that had followed each. He spoke sadly of the perversion of the servants of good by the desire to understand that evil and of the unwillingness of the good to admit that the evil returned so allowing it to grow and strengthen.

The season continued to turn and the children grew stronger and brighter, more of their forgotten memory returning with each sunrise. Each new memory they shared with him and he wondered at the world that had created them. Sometimes he would go to the top of the trees and look at the stars they had told him so much of and ponder on how the children of men had learned so much and yet so little.

It was on a warm summer evening that Gallica joined him there and asked the question that she had spent the centuries learning to ask.

"Why? How could they know so much, be given so much, and yet come to such an end?"  
He smiled and replied.  
"Do you truly not know?" he pointed towards the brightest star, "that is a flaming ball of gas your memory tells you, yet is it any the less beautiful for that?"  
"No"  
"Does it need to be beautiful to be a flaming ball of gas?"~  
"No."

"Yet it is beautiful?"  
"Yes, it is beautiful."  
"Are both things needed to be a star?"  
"Yes."  
"Are either chance? Do you need to be sure of that for it be both the things it is?"  
"No and no."  
"Is that the answer you look for?"  
She thought for a moment then nodded.  
"Yes. They ended as they did because they forgot what a star was, they stopped seeing anything more than a flaming ball of gas. They had knowledge but no wisdom."

He nodded as he stared towards the heavens,  
"They knew much but they lost the ability to understand, they swore an oath to allow only the knowledge they created and could control and they followed it, worshipped it, even when it was flawed or incomplete, even when it brought them loss and grief and death. That in the end was the consuming evil that destroyed them. Just as once long ago it brought elves their doom. Men followed the same path as Feanor and his cursed sons, falling to darkness because they could only see the light of their own making."

xxx

It was on the first day of the next spring that they told him they must leave and on that midsummers morn he stood with them before his gates and they made their goodbyes, he saw them burn bright in the growing day, felt the forest send out a great cry, then he let the barrier around Greenwood fall and they were gone. He felt Gallicas love and her last 'thank you' echo in his mind as they departed from Arda and he knew that the seventh age was over.

xxx

Alone as he never had been before he wandered the forest, feeling it wrap its warmth and light around him. Thranduil wondered what if anything would happen to him now, it seemed that he was destined to remain here until the world was unmade and felt afraid at the thought. There were many he longed to see again, the children of the seventh age had never replaced those he loved but they had made the pain of being separated more bearable. Now without them and without those he had know through the previous ages he feared for his fate, he had been patient, trusted in the One if not the Valar but finally desperation entered into his mind. He wondered what evil he had committed that he was to be left to wait for Ardas' unmaking abandoned and alone. The forest crooned a song of hope and love and its king sought to find light and solace in that and to fill the void left by all those he had lost with its warmth, but he was afraid.

Summer passed and Autumn brought the shortening days that spoke of the advance of winter. Thranduil wandered through the woods lost in memories feeling the sadness of a grief he could no longer deny settle upon him and wishing he could hear the voice of just one he had lost again. Yet when he heard a voice it was not one he had ever thought to hear and certainly not in the Greenwood.

"Hail Thranduil King. It is good to see you again. Patiently have I waited for this day, as indeed have many others."  
The voice seemed to come from all around him and it was familiar and yet strange at the same time.  
"Who are you and where are you?" he asked.  
"As for who, do you not know me? As for where, why I am beside you. Look again, harder this time."

Beside him a glow seemed to gather in the air and when he looked again there was a figure, known and yet unknown standing beside him, smiling kindly. He knew the eyes, and the face seemed familiar and yet he did not think he had ever seen it look so clean and bright.  
"Mithrandir? Is it indeed you? What dire fate brings you to Middle earth again, what must my forest bear now that you come to visit us?"  
A look of sadness passed across the others face.  
"Is that your only memory of me, loss and pain and grief?"  
"How else should I remember you? How many of my friends and kin died for your actions? Did I not lose my son to the sea on a quest of yours? I know that much had to be as it was and am reconciled to that, but I cannot change the memories you have left to me. If I forget I lose those others completely and that I will not do."

The look of sadness deepened.  
"No I understand that, and yet I hoped to leave you with something more than acceptance." He smiled and spoke softly, "but I might have found worse I suppose and if acceptance is all you have of me then you have done well with it, better than I knew."  
Thranduil ignored that, aware that as so often in the past the wizard had not answered what he was asked.  
"You have not answered me, what is it that brings you here? The world of men has passed, the ones they begot and left behind have grown and gone, I am alone, even my companions in fading have left. What use for me can you have now to bring you across the sea?"

The look on the familiar face changed, the smile softening and a glow of joy lit eyes that seemed somehow deeper and fathomless.  
"Use? Not at all except to see you returned to joy. I have come to welcome you home. Finally."  
Thranduil smiled sadly and shook his head.  
"Home? I cannot go home Mithrandir, not as I believe you mean it. There are no ships and even if you brought one I could not take it to the west, I have faded as was the fate of those who did not leave, and Mandos has not summoned me. I am bound here until the world is unmade though I do not know why, or what sin I committed to be so abandoned."

Thranduil almost jumped as he felt the grip of a hand upon his arm and he met eyes dancing with merriment with wide eyed shock. There was amusement and pleasure in the familiar voice.  
"Faded? You seem quite solid to me. Did you not teach yourself to be so for the children?"  
Thranduil looked down at himself and realised ro his astonishment that the wizard was right, he was clothed in flesh again and yet he had done nothing to make it so,  
"How is this, Mithrandir it is no act of mine."  
"No, but there are others who can make this so. Surely you know this?"  
"Only the Lord Mandos and he has forsaken me, as have the others of the Valar. Why then would he do such a thing?"

"You have never been forsaken my friend, nor were your companions. You have been in Lord Mandos care for some considerable time, though you did not know it. You were needed in Middle earth and so it was arranged. Why the burden fell to you I do not know, perhaps in the end you proved stronger than most, perhaps there was more room in your heart for those that needed you, the reason has never been shared with me and it is not for me to ask But now that duty is fulfilled, the last children have gone, Middle Earth is safe and the world will drowse for a while, now it is time for you to come home."  
Thranduil sighed.  
"You cannot know how much I long for that, even though it would mean bidding Greenwood farewell. Great as my love for the forest is if it is safe it no longer needs me and there are so many I would see again, be near again. Have you a ship then that can take the straight way, one that can carry me home?"  
"There is no ship Oh king of the wood, nor is one needed, there are other ways to travel the straight route if it is allowed, nor do you need to bid Greenwood farewell. Come walk with me and I will show you."

With that the wizard turned and led Thranduil through the trees until they came to the gate to the Elven road, there he stopped and with a smile as bright as the sun at noon he indicated that the elf should step out into the land beyond the trees.

With a enquiring look the Elvenking did as he was bid.

Beyond the trees lay a land like none he had ever seen, not Middle earth at all but a land so fair, so peaceful in look and feel that there could be no doubting where he was. He turned back towards his companion and his surprise increased for Greenwood was still there. The wizard nodded.

"Yes, the undying lands, you are home and so is the forest that bore so much."  
"How?"  
"Does it matter? Do you doubt?"  
Thranduil shook his head with a smile.  
"No it does not matter and no I do not doubt."  
"That is fortunate, for there are some who have waited for this day less patiently than you, and I hate to think what they would say if you did. See." he indicated the lands beyond the trees again.

Thranduil turned at the same time as he heard the voice.  
"Father!"  
There, coming up the path beside the forest was his son. He watched wide eyed as Legolas turned and called to someone behind him.  
"He is here, it is today, he is here."

Thranduil watched as another figure appeared behind his son, one with a face he had dreamed of for four ages, a face as fair and gentle as the lands she strode across. She stopped when she saw him, joy radiating from her, and held out her hand towards him. Legolas laughed and held out his hand too.

Then without a further word to the wizard Thranduil was running home.


End file.
